Smoooooooth Jazz

The YES network’s rain delay music is hiLARious and incredibly fitting. check it out.

 

We’re all assholes. (And that’s the way we like it)

Yankee game number two yesterday! And oh wow, what. a. game. The LAST FIRST YANKS-RED SOX HOME GAME OF THE SEASON IN YANKEE STADIUM EVER was something of a slugfest classic, and the fans were fantastic. Fantastically entertaining. There is NO END to the shit Boston fans get in Yankee Stadium. It’s just hilarious. Most hilarious were the events that transpired right in my own section. I could go through, detail by detail, just how the events of one obnoxious Masshole Bostonian Red Sox fan three rows in front of where I was sitting got taken away by the cops. (I have never, NEVER seen a group of cops move that fast in real life.) But I have neither the patience nor the descriptive prowess to really give the whole incident the life and hilarity it deserves and warrants. So I will take a cue from my previous post.

Last night’s most entertaining moments, and the things I learned from them:

Cops on duty in the Stadium are definitely Yankee fans.

Peanuts are great for pelting at your enemy without getting into trouble.

Alcohol, while a great social lubricant, is also a great escalator of confrontation.

When in enemy territory, be on your best behavior, or you just might get jumped.

People from Boston really have the most annoying accents ever.

No matter how calm you think you are, everyone has a breaking point when they’re being pelted with things.

Policing in Yankee Stadium may be a tad unfair in the grand scheme of things. But damn is it funny.

 

 

A Monumental Event! A Momentous Occasion!

So last night I went to my first Yankee game of the season. Yes, the LAST SECOND GAME AT YANKEE STADIUM. EVER. And somewhere between the LAST FIRST A-ROD HOME RUN OF THE SEASON IN YANKEE STADIUM EVER and the LAST LAST PITCH OF A SECOND GAME OF THE SEASON IN YANKEE STADIUM EVER, my scarf and blazer and $9 beers really stopped cutting it. I had to leave. The game was (kind of) awesome. Yankee Stadium is always great, and A-Rod home runs are sexy as hell. But we were losing, and it was October cold, and I’ve got lots of games to look forward to this season. So I left. (Sue me.)

Always a subway girl, I was planning on taking the 4, switching for the 6, and making the 10-15 minute trek back to my apartment. Until Marshall suggested quite casually as we pulled away from Yankee Stadium, “you should take the bus”. Now, the casuality (really?) with which he made this suggestion was quite well juxtaposed with my reaction. “The bus?! I never take the bus.”

Now let me be clear, I am not a bus snob. I don’t look down on people who take the bus. Yes, I like the subway, and maybe on the hierarchy of public transporation, I put the bus lower than the subway (and probably lower than those bicycle carts too.) I just really know NOTHING about it, and have never had much of a necessity to learn anything about it. Blissfully ignorant, I suppose. But as the thought of that miserable windy walk after 3 hours in the cold kept popping up in my head, I realized just how good a recommendation that bus idea might be.

So instructions were given (thanks, man!) and I was on my way. And well, while the details of my bus trip of all…oh i don’t know…15 blocks, weren’t terribly exhilarating, the point is that I TOOK THE BUS! BY MYSELF! LIKE A BIG GIRL! HOORAY FOR ME!

LAST FIRST ALONE NEW YORK BUS RIDE EVER.

 

NCAA Tournament: Day 3, aka Things that cause me to REALLY have a shitfit (or die a little bit inside)

…When my three-pointer dependent team can’t sink their threes.

…When it becomes painfully apparent for the umpteenth time this season that Duke is smaller and less aggressive under the basket than pretty much every team worth anything in the NCAAs.

…When I see DeMarcus Nelson’s face on the bench at the end of the game, all too aware of his tournament shortcomings, and his career over.

…When I think about all the gloating Duke haters out there.

…When I remember how good UNC looks right now. (yes, i know. i’m a hypocrite.)

That said, I still love the tournament and am most definitely still watching. (why oh WHY did I have to miss that Stanford-Marquette game? Oh yea, cause I saw Aretha instead. more on that soon.) 

But my focus has shifted. (Please, Andy Pettitte, recover quickly, we need you!)

 

I suppose…

…I should be focusing my energy here. (You were right, Carolina.)

This blog has kind of been all over the place. I know that. I also know that I’m writing about a lot of things that I know very little about. And how does that cliche go? Write what you know? Well, I don’t know all that much about anything. (My friends might say I know a lot about music. I guess I do, but I’m CERTAINLY no expert.) And I like to write. So I don’t know where that leaves me.

Maybe at some point I will find a focus that I feel confident in solely exploring. But until then, throwing my energy every which way feels right. So there.

Oh, and I’m watching my first Yankees preseason game right now. oh man, am I pissed that I missed this whole Shelley Duncan fiasco. (I still totally heart you, Shelley, don’t worry.) Seems the Devil Rays…excuse me: Rays…got a facelift. Doesn’t change the fact that they’re a starter team. (Two lower-mid-level stars don’t make you a real team.) Now, I may be (i.e. probably am) speaking too soon. October is a loooooong way away. But opening day is not! It’s BASEBALL season, people. yesssss.

 

Roger Clemens = Colonel Jessup?

By now, pretty much all of us with any kind of mild interest in baseball or sports in general has heard more than we can stand about steroids in baseball, and particularly, the feud going on between Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte (so nice! so humble! so sorry!), Brian McNamee, and the U.S. government, among countless other interested parties and hangers-on. It’s become such an unbelievable spectacle that there’s really only one thing any of us semi-intrigued yet semi-detached onlookers can do anymore: make jokes about it. The best I’ve heard/read so far was sent to my inbox this morning, which really broke up the slow-painful-death-through-boredom-and-monotony of a typical Thursday morning…or any other weekday morning for that matter.

It’s possible that, through the *MAGIC* of the internet, many of you have already seen this, but for those of you who haven’t, I hope you enjoy it just as much as I did.

Clemens: You want answers?

Congressman: I think I’m entitled to them.

Clemens: You want answers?

Congressman: I want the truth!

Clemens: You can’t handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that loves
baseball. And those balls have to be pitched by men with arms. Who’s gonna do
it? You? You, Congressman? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly
fathom. You weep for steroids and you curse HGH. You have that luxury. You have
the luxury of not knowing what I know: that HGH, while illegal, sells tickets.
And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, sells
tickets…You don’t want the truth. Because deep down, in places you don’t talk
about at parties, you want me on that mound. You need me on that mound. We use
words like no-hitter, fastball, strikeout…we use these words as the backbone to a life spent playing a sport. You use ‘em as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and falls asleep to the Sportscenter clips I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide them! I’d rather you
just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a
bat and dig in. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you’re entitled
to!

Congressman: Did you order the HGH?

Clemens: (quietly) I did the job you sent me to do.

Congressman: Did you order the HGH?

Clemens: YOU’RE GODDAMN RIGHT I DID!!!

Hilarious. I only take exception to one thing in this passage; the fact that Tom Cruise’s drive to exhonerate two soldiers who fell victim to their circumstances in “A Few Good Men” (and pretty pretty eyes) are being conflated with a U.S. Congressman’s witchhunt to defame a baseball player who, until very recently, was destined for the Hall of Fame (well, the JURY’s still out on that one…heh. see what I did there?).

Then again, Tom Cruise is nutso, and Roger Clemens is, in all likelihood, very very guilty. And everyone needs a little humor in their lives.

 

Joba is a better texter than you.

Joba Chamberlain just might be Superman. Joba ended the 2007 season with a 0.38 ERA, striking out 34 of the 91 batters he faced, and giving up just ONE earned run in his 19 regular season appearances. And the guy’s got balls. As if he wasn’t already a beloved figure in the Bronx, throwing two fastballs in a row over the head of Kevin Youikilis in the thick of a Yanks-Red Sox game when the Yanks were up 5-0 surely cemented the adoration of Yankee fans everywhere for the young’un with the lightning bolt right arm.

(In true Superman form, Joba does in fact have his own kryptonite. fucking BUGS?!?!)

But Joba has another claim to fame that you may not be aware of: King of Text Messaging. Yes, that’s right, according to the man himself, Joba sends 100-200 text messages a day. (Which means, if you do the math, from his debut as a Yankee until he gave up his first run, Joba sent anywhere from 3,500 to 7,500 texts.) And don’t think this is just an inflated ego wanting to sound super popular talking. How could anyone willing to look like this ( http://www.hotstovenewyork.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/oz-joba.jpg ) be anything but humble?

In an article from the forthcoming issue of ESPN Magazine (which, incidentally, gives Joba the title of the next big thing in sports–as if we didn’t know that already…), Buster Olney conducts an interview with Joba entirely over text messages. My favorite one was Joba’s reponse to Olney’s question regarding the claim that Joba is a huge UFC fan:

“It was awesome! It def is getting bigger than boxing! Even had a couple guys from Nebraska fighting! There is so much more that goes into it than boxing. You got the martial arts aspect, ground and pound. It’s just so complex in all areas of training!”

Wow. Impressively long text, Joba. As you can see, Joba LOVES the exclamation points, pointing to his zest for life! His youth and coolness factor as well as his marital arts expertise are apparent through his use of the abbrevs and phrases like “ground and pound”.

If Joba weren’t a baseball player, he’d be the most lovable frat star on the planet. He warms my heart. He really really does.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3142534